Eternal Strangers

With the permission of Castle Hill, Inconvenient History prints in this issue, without further ado, the Part One of Thomas Dalton’s newest tome, Eternal Strangers: Critical Views of Jews and Judaism through the Ages. The book can be purchased in print and eBook from Armreg Ltd at armreg.co.uk. For a more-detailed description, see the book announcements at the end of this issue.

Part One: Critiques from the Ancient World

Chapter 1: Anti-Jewish Musings from the Pre-Christian Era

“This almost universal negative attitude… needs further scrutiny. Its main source must be sought in the basic fact that the Jews, in spite of their having been Europeans for so many centuries, were still considered, even by themselves, to be utter strangers.”

— I. Barzilay (1956: 253)

Poor Jews! Condemned by God and fate to be forever misunderstood, neglected, insulted, abused, envied, pitied – indeed, hated by all mankind. The subject of insult, calumny, slander, nay, even beatings, torture, and all manner of physical abuse. Such an unkind destiny. How did it come to this? How is it that throughout history, Jews have come to be detested, battered, and beaten down? Is it something about Jewish culture? Religion? Ethnicity? Values? And how does this long history relate to present-day abuse and hatred heaped upon Jews worldwide, and on the Jewish state?

These are important questions, given the present condition of the world and the power and influence commanded by the Jewish community generally. Part of the current animosity is based, no doubt, on the mere fact that Jews, a small minority in every nation of the world save Israel, hold grossly disproportionate power to their numbers.[1] Acting through the United States, Jews are more dominant than ever; we need only recall the statement of Malaysian president Mahathir Mohamad, who said, “Today the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.”[2] People everywhere, no matter their religious or political context, understand an elemental fact of democracy: a small, wealthy minority of people should not exert disproportionate influence in the life of a nation. That the Jews do this is undeniable, and they would be disliked on this count alone.

But there is much more to the story. Their present level of influence is unprecedented, but Jews have had access to power for millennia. Against this backdrop have been numerous pogroms, banishments, and outright massacres. Thus it was not strictly their influence that led others to detest them. Other factors have been at work. By recounting this history, and the observations of prominent individuals, we may better understand the Jewish phenomenon, and thus learn how to better deal with this most influential minority.

In the present work, I will trace the history of negative attitudes toward Jews and Jewish society, beginning in ancient times. The point is not to revel in abuse, but to give voice to the most articulate and insightful critics of Jews – and to draw plausible conclusions.

In the academic literature, such a study would come under the heading ‘history of anti-Semitism.’ There are many such works; the library database WorldCat lists over 800 English-language books on this topic published in the past 10 years alone. But these books – the vast majority by Jewish authors – reflect a strongly pro-Jewish bias. Consequently, the critics are nearly always the source of the problem, never the Jews or Jewish actions. The Jews themselves are almost uniformly portrayed as an innocent and beleaguered people, set upon by cruel and vindictive forces. The various “anti-Semites” are depicted as sick individuals, sadistic in nature, even downright evil. At the very least, they are severely mentally ill. Consider this impressive statement from a recent “anatomy of anti-Semitism”:

“In the 1940s and 1950s, students of anti-Semitism widely regarded that phenomenon … as a ramification of severe emotional or social disorder. They realized that Christian prejudice… could not explain the firestorm that had nearly obliterated twentieth-century European Jewry. … In the agonized post-Holocaust reassessment, … psychohistorians, psychiatrists, and psychoanalysts tended to focus on flaws in the argument that anti-Semitism sprang from christological sources. … [American postwar studies] describe anti-Semitism as an emotional disorder produced by intrapsychic tensions and sexual and social anxieties and frustrations. … Jew haters accordingly exhibit grave personality disorders. They are asocial or antisocial, alienated, isolated, inhibited, anxious, repressed, rigid, regressive, infantile, narcissistic, hostile, punitive, conformist, dependent, delusive, guilt-ridden, paranoid, irrational, aggressive, and prone to violence.” (Jaher 1994: 10-12)

Frederic Jaher all but exhausts his thesaurus in seeking pejorative appellations for the insane “Jew haters.” And yet we must ask ourselves: Is this rational? Were there no other causes that might have motivated the critics of Jewry? Were all the notable ‘anti-Semites’ in history – and there were many, as I will show – really insane? All those prominent and brilliant individuals, by all other accounts men of genius – were they closet lunatics? Or does the problem lie elsewhere? Is the psychosis, perhaps, resident in the Jewish personality, the Jewish psyche, the Jewish race? Is it a defense mechanism to reflect one’s own deficiencies upon one’s enemies?

In the following assessment of historical attitudes, I will be seeking common and universal themes. Attitudes, criticisms, and other negative observations that persist over the centuries and across cultures are significant markers; they indicate a set of robust and persistent traits that are apparently embedded in the Jewish character. It is enlightening to examine such traits in an open and objective manner.

Critiques from the Ancient World

Traditionally speaking, the Jewish ethnicity traces back to Abraham, circa 1500 BC. Jews spread out around the Middle East, interacting with neighboring tribes and cultures while maintaining a strong sense of racial unity. Within two centuries they reached Egypt, multiplied, and “the land was filled with them” (Ex 1:7). As the story goes, the pharaoh determined that “the people of Israel are too many and too mighty,” and thus he had to “deal shrewdly” with them. The fear was that, in the event of some war, the Jews might “join our enemies and fight against us” – though why they would betray their host nation is unclear. A sort of repression began but apparently the Jews fought back; “the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel.” A series of plagues then hit Egypt on behalf of the Jews, whereupon the pharaoh relented and they were driven out.[3] If true, this constituted the first ‘anti-Semitic’ act in recorded history.

Amazingly, we have independent, physical evidence for conflicts between the Egyptians and the Jews. The Amarna letters are a series of 380 clay tablets containing letters to two pharaohs, Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, dating between roughly 1360 and 1332 BC. Nine of the letters refer to one “Labayu” as a noted rebel and marauding trouble-maker from Shechem,[4] in the area of present-day Israel; three other letters are from Labayu himself. In letter EA 244, one Biridiya of Megidda complains to Akhenaten as follows:

“May the king, my lord, know that… Labayu has waged war against me. We are thus unable to do the [harvesting], because of Labayu. … May the king save [Megidda] lest Labayu seize it. … Labayu has no other purpose; he seeks simply the seizure of Meggida.” (Moran 1987: 298)

Significantly, Labayu and his two sons were in evident collaboration with “the Habiru” (or ‘Apiru’), which some scholars have identified as “the Hebrews.” Paul Johnson (1987: 23) suggests that Labayu and sons were the “coreligionists and racial kin” of the Jews enslaved in Egypt. Labayu “caused great difficulties for the Egyptian authorities and their allies; as with all other Habiru, he was… a nuisance.” And insolent; in EA 252, Labayu threatens to “bite the hand” of Akhenaten; “how can I show deference?” he complains. He is furthermore constantly trying to refute his image as a rebel. Such impudence seems to have given the Habiru/​Hebrews an early and rather nasty reputation.

Even if the Exodus was pure fiction, we do have concrete evidence of a people called “Israel” by 1200 BC. The 1896 discovery of an engraved stone in east-central Egypt, known as the Merneptah Stele, brought to light a cryptic but telling line: “Israel is laid waste, and his seed is not.” We don’t know the context, but evidently certain Egyptians came into conflict with “Israel” and defeated them badly – to the point that they were virtually exterminated (at least, locally). This event might be considered the second historical action against the Jews, and the first to be definitively dated. In any case, the Jews apparently established themselves in Palestine, creating the unified Kingdom of David by 1000 BC. Shortly thereafter they built their first temple (Solomon’s Temple) in Jerusalem.[5]

Another negative incident occurred around the year 850 BC, one that was recorded on the Tel Dan Stele, recently discovered in northern Israel. On this stone, a King Hazael boasts of his victory over the Israeli kings and the “House of David.” Evidently the Jews had invaded his father’s land, and Hazael had subsequently exacted his revenge. As before, an apparently aggressive and hostile Jewish people attacked their neighbors, and paid a price for their belligerence.

The next detailed account of “Jew hatred” is documented later in the Old Testament, in the Book of Esther. Esther was the Jewish queen of Persian King Xerxes (Ahasuerus), circa 475 BC. The king’s second in command, Haman, grew to hate the Jews because of their insolence, especially that of Esther’s cousin Mordecai. Consequently, “Haman sought to destroy all the Jews” (Esther 3:6). He issued directives “to destroy, to slay, and to annihilate all Jews,” and built a monstrous gallows, 50 cubits high (about 25 m, or some 80 feet), just to hang Mordecai. Through various trickery, Esther turned the tables, and Haman himself ended up on the gallows.[6] This of course is the Jewish version of events, and we have no independent account of this story, but still, it is reasonable to assume some factual basis at its core. And it shows that the Jews have been able to inure themselves to powerful figures for millennia.

Yet another anti-Jewish incident occurred in the year 410 BC, in which the Egyptian military commander Vidranga attacked and destroyed the Jewish temple at Elephantine.[7] With these early events we find a trend beginning to emerge: where the Jews settled amongst other peoples, they seem to have made enemies.

* * *

For roughly the first millennium of their existence, no outside writers made note of the Hebrew tribe – or at least, no writings have survived. We have only the internal, Old Testament account of things, which is no doubt glorified and exaggerated in turn. Of interest here is how the outsiders, the non-Jews, viewed them when they did begin to take notice.

The first to comment were the Greeks. Through seafaring trade and imperial expansion they came into contact with many groups of the eastern Mediterranean, including Egyptians, Phoenicians, Syrians, and Jews. The earliest direct references come from Theophrastus and Hecateus of Abdera, but there are two preceding and suggestive passages from Plato. The first is in Republic, dated circa 375 BC. Amidst a discussion of justice in the polis, Plato identifies three social classes: rulers, auxiliaries (military), and the “money-makers” (businessmen). He then compares these qualities to neighboring cultures, observing that “the love of money… is conspicuously displayed by the Phoenicians and Egyptians” (436a). We don’t know if, by ‘Phoenicians,’ Plato means to include the Jews; certainly he does not mention them by name. At that time there was general confusion about the various tribes of that region.[8] Still, it is striking that the people there were widely known as lovers of money.

A second and related reference comes from Plato’s final work (ca. 350 BC), Laws. In Book V he discusses the virtue and value of mathematics, under the condition that we “expel the spirit of pettiness and greed” (747c) that would otherwise invite abuse of that skill. If a teacher fails to do this, he will have inadvertently produced a “twister,” a dangerously corrupt person – as has happened “in the case of the Egyptians and Phoenicians, and many other races whose approach to wealth and life in general shows a narrow-minded outlook.” This could reflect a general sense of Athenian elitism, but it is interesting that Plato again cites those two groups specifically.

But it is not until roughly 310 BC that we find the first explicit reference to the Jews, by Aristotle’s chief pupil Theophrastus. It seems he had a concern about one of their customs: “the Syrians, of whom the Jews (Ioudaioi) constitute a part, also now sacrifice live victims. … They were the first to institute sacrifices both of other living beings and of themselves.” The Greeks, he added, would have “recoiled from the entire business.”[9] The victims – animal and human – were not eaten, but burnt as “whole offerings” to their God, and were “quickly destroyed.” The philosopher was clearly repelled by this Jewish tradition.

And Theophrastus’ word for ‘whole burnt offering’? A “holocaust” (holokautountes) – meaning a complete burning (holos–kaustos). Incredibly, the very first Greek reference to Jews also includes the very first reference to a “holocaust.” Fate works in strange ways indeed.

* * *

It was around that time that the Macedonian general Ptolemy I came to rule Egypt. His military, for various reasons, could not conscript Egyptian citizens, and so a mercenary army was necessary. Ptolemy had a ready supply at hand in the Jews. Gabba (1984: 635) relates that the king employed 30,000 Jews, chosen from among his many prisoners of war.

“Well paid and highly trustworthy, they served to keep the native population at bay, and the natives apparently retaliated against them from time to time.”

This, in addition to the cultural and religious quirks, was another basis for indigenous animosity towards Jews. It anticipates the similar use of Jewry by future leaders of Europe and Russia – with comparable results. Many times throughout history, Jews have come to serve as intermediaries between those in power and the masses; this allowed them to both acquire considerable wealth and to exercise power of their own. But again, this incident is revealing. It is understandable to want to get out of prison, but one must wonder at the evident readiness of the Jews to side with their enemies, for pay, and to do so enthusiastically, with little compunction.

Hecateus, working somewhat after Theophrastus, wrote the first text dedicated to the subject: On the Jews.[10] Two fragments survive, one by the Jewish writer Josephus and the other by Diodorus. Generally speaking both fragments are sympathetic to the Jews, and thus it is striking that the latter includes this observation on the story of the Exodus: “as a consequence of having been driven out [of Egypt], Moses introduced a way of life which was to a certain extent misanthropic and hostile to foreigners” (apanthropon tina kai mixoxenon bion).[11] One can certainly understand the anger of any people who have been driven from their place of residence. But why should this translate into misanthropy – that is, hatred of mankind in general? It is as if the Jews took out their anger on the rest of humanity. Perhaps it was a case of extreme resentment combined with extreme stubbornness. Or perhaps this was already a characteristic trait; we cannot yet tell.

But there is a second question here: Why were the Jews driven out? Egyptian high priest Manetho (ca. 250 BC) tells of a group of “lepers and other polluted persons,” 80,000 in number, who were exiled from Egypt and found residence in Judea. There they established Jerusalem and built a large temple. Manetho comments that the Jews kept to themselves, as it was their law “to interact with none save those of their own confederacy.” As the story continues, the Jews (“Solymites”) marshaled allies from amongst other ‘polluted’ persons, returned to Egypt, and temporarily conquered a large territory. When in power they treated the natives “impiously and savagely,” “set[ting] towns and villages on fire, pillaging the temples and mutilating images of the gods without restraint,” and roasting (‘holocausting’) the animals held sacred by the locals.[12] The degree of truthfulness here is uncertain, but once again it is reasonable to assume some factual basis.

Into the Roman Era

The Seleucid (Macedonian) king Antiochus IV Epiphanes ruled over the territory of Judea in the early second century BC. Internal Jewish disputes elevated to a general insurrection, angering him. His army invaded Jerusalem in 168 BC, killing many Jews and plundering their great (second) temple. Greek philosopher Posidonius adds that, upon seizing the temple, Epiphanes freed a Greek citizen who was being held captive, only to be fattened up for sacrifice, and eaten. This was allegedly an annual ritual.[13] He further remarks that the Jews worshipped the head of an ass, having placed one of solid gold in their temple. Nonetheless, within a few years the Jews prevailed in the so-called Maccabean Revolt, reestablishing Jewish rule over Judea – a situation that would last until the Romans invaded in 63 BC.

The decline of the Seleucids coincided with Roman ascent. Rome was still technically a republic in the second century BC, but its power and influence were rapidly growing. Jews were attracted to the seat of power, and migrated to Rome in significant numbers. As before, they came to be hated. By 139 BC, the Roman praetor Hispalus found it necessary to expel them from the city: “The same Hispalus banished the Jews from Rome, who were attempting to hand over their own rites to the Romans, and he cast down their private alters from public places.”[14] In even this short passage, one senses a Roman Jewry who were disproportionately prominent, obtrusive, even ‘pushy.’

Perhaps in part because of this incident, and in light of the Maccabean revolt some 30 years earlier, the Seleucid king Antiochus VII Sidetes was advised in 134 BC to exterminate the Jews. Referring to the account by Posidonius, Gabba (1984: 645) explains that the king was called on

“to destroy the Jews, for they alone among all peoples refused all relations with other races, and saw everyone as their enemy; their forbears, impious and cursed by the gods, had been driven out of Egypt. The counselors [cited] the Jews’ hatred of all mankind, sanctioned by their very laws, which forbade them to share their table with a Gentile or give any sign of benevolence.”

Needless to say, Sidetes did not heed his counselors’ advice.

Two or three decades after Posidonius, around the year 75 BC, prominent speaker and teacher Apollonius Molon wrote the first book to explicitly confront the Hebrew tribe, Against the Jews. From his early years in Caria and Rhodes he would likely have had direct contact with them, and thus was able to write from personal experience. Molon referred to Moses as a “charlatan” and “imposter,” viewing the Jews as “the very vilest of mankind”.[15] Josephus adds the following:[16]

“[Molon] has scattered [his accusations] here and there all over his work, reviling us in one place as atheists and misanthropes, in another reproaching us as cowards, whereas elsewhere, on the contrary, he accuses us of temerity and reckless madness. He adds that we are the most witless of all barbarians, and are consequently the only people who have contributed no useful invention to civilization.”

The Jews are ‘atheists’ in the sense that they reject the Roman gods. The ‘misanthrope’ charge recurs, having first appeared some two centuries earlier in Hecateus. But the complaints of cowardice, villainy, and recklessness are new, as is the statement that the Jews have contributed nothing of value to civilization. The rhetoric is clearly heating up.

In 63 BC, a momentous event: Roman general Pompey takes Palestine. For most residents of the region this was nothing to be feared, and in fact promised to bring significant improvements in many areas of life. After all, the Romans granted citizenship to those they conquered, and brought many advances in standard of living. But as the formerly dominant force in Judea, the Jews were particularly incensed. And now the Romans had to face their wrath directly, in the form of an on-going insurrection.

Thus it is unsurprising that we find a quick succession of anti-Jewish comments by notable Romans. Five are of interest, beginning with Cicero. In the year 59 BC Cicero gave a speech, now titled Pro Flacco, that offered a defense of L. V. Flaccus, a Roman propraetor in Asia. Flaccus was charged with embezzling Jewish gold destined for Jerusalem. Strikingly, Cicero begins by noting the power and influence of the Jews:[17]

“You know what a big crowd it is, how they stick together, how influential they are in informal assemblies. So I will speak in a low voice so that only the jurors may hear; for those are not wanting who would incite them against me and against every respectable man.”

Shades of the Israel Lobby! It’s rather shocking that Cicero, speaking near the height of Roman power, should voice this concern – if even as a mock concern.

He continues on, noting that the senate had a long-standing policy of restricting gold exports, and that Flaccus was only enforcing this rule, not withholding the gold for himself. Here was his downfall: “But to resist this barbaric superstition (barbarae superstitioni) was an act of firmness, to defy the crowd of Jews (Iudaeorum) when sometimes in our assemblies they were hot with passion…” All the gold is accounted for, Cicero hastens to add. The whole trial “is just an attempt to fix odium on him” (recalling present-day attempts to smear ‘anti-Semites’). The Jewish religion is “at variance with the glory of our empire, the dignity of our name, the customs of our ancestors.” That the gods stand opposed to this tribe “is shown by the fact that it has been conquered, let out for taxes, made a slave” – so much for the ‘chosen people’ of God.[18]

Ten years later Diodorus Siculus wrote his Historical Library. Among other things, it recounts the Exodus:

“[T]he ancestors of the Jews had been driven out of all Egypt as men who were impious and detested by the gods. For by way of purging the country of all persons who had white or leprous marks on their bodies had been assembled and driven across the border, as being under a curse; the refugees had occupied the territory round about Jerusalem, and having organized the nation of Jews had made their hatred of mankind into a tradition…” (HL 34,1)

The Library then includes a retelling of Antiochus Epiphanes’ takeover of the Jewish temple in 168 – the same event found in the earlier work of Posidonius. But this is no mere duplication; it demonstrates an acceptance and endorsement of that account. Here, though, it is Antiochus Epiphanes, not his successor Sidetes, that was urged “to wipe out completely the race of Jews, since they alone, of all nations, avoided dealings with any other people and looked upon all men as their enemies (polemious hypolambanein pantas)”.[19] This is a striking and telling statement: “they alone, of all nations”. It’s not that the Romans found fault with everyone. Rather, the Jews were singled out, of all the ethnicities that the Romans encountered; Jews alone seemed to be uniquely disposed toward hatred of their fellow men.

Upon entering the temple Antiochus finds a statue of a bearded man on an ass – Moses, the one “who had ordained for the Jews their misanthropic and lawless customs.” Antiochus’ advisors were “shocked by such hatred directed against all mankind,” and therefore “strongly urged [him] to make an end of the race completely.” In his magnanimity, he declined.

The great lyric poet Horace (65-8 BC) wrote his Satires (Latin: Sermones) in 35 BC, exploring Epicurean philosophy and the meaning of happiness. At one point, though, he makes a passing comment on the apparently notorious proselytizing ability of the Roman Jews – in particular their tenaciousness in winning over others. Horace is in the midst of attempting to persuade the reader of his point of view: “and if you do not wish to yield, then a great band of poets will come to my aid… and, just like the Jews, we will compel you to concede to our crowd” (Satires I.4.143). Their power must have been legendary, or he would not have made such an allusion.

The fourth reference comes from Ptolemy the Historian, circa 25 BC. In his History of Herod he discusses the different ethnicities of Palestine, and comments on the people known as ‘Idumaeans’ (or ‘Edomites’), a tribe living in the southern desert region of present-day Israel. They were defeated by the Hebrews in 125 BC and absorbed into the Jewish nation. Ptolemy notes that the original Jews are ethnically distinct. This is in noted contrast to the ‘converted’ Idumaeans, who suffered genital mutilation as a mark of their incorporation:[20]

“Jews and Idumaeans differ… Jews are those who are so by origin and nature. The Idumaeans, on the other hand, were not originally Jews, but Phoenicians and Syrians – having been subjugated by the Jews and having been forced to undergo circumcision, so as to be counted among the Jewish nation…”

If the Jews are distinct by “origin” (arches) and “nature” (physichoi), this clearly points to a racial definition, in addition to the obvious religious designation. The debate about the religious vs. ethnic characterization of the Jews is ancient indeed.[21]

Ptolemy was one of the first, outside the Bible, to comment on the Jewish practice of circumcision. He does not offer his opinion on it, but clearly sees it as a brutality when inflicted upon unwilling males, presumably even adolescents and adults.[22]

The last commentator of the pre-Christian era is Lysimachus. Writing circa 20 BC, he offers another variation on the Exodus story, placing it in the reign of the pharaoh Bocchoris (or Bakenranef) of 720 BC. On his version, the Jews, “afflicted with leprosy, scurvy, and other maladies,” sought refuge in Egyptian temples. The oracles advised Bocchoris to cleanse the temples, to banish the impious and impure, and “to pack the lepers into sheets of lead and sink them in the ocean” – which he did. The exiled ones, led by Moses, were instructed to “show goodwill to no man,” to offer “the worst advice” to others, and to overthrow any temples or sanctuaries they might come upon. Arriving in Judea, “they maltreated the population, and plundered and set fire to the [local] temples.” They then built a town called Hierosolyma (Jerusalem), and referred to themselves as Hierosolymites.[23] If indeed they persecuted the indigenous population, one can see in this a distant predecessor to the current Israeli atrocities in Palestine.

* * *

The charge of misanthropy, or hatred of mankind, is significant and merits further discussion. It has recurred several times already – in Hecateus, Posidonius, Molon, Diodorus, and now Lysimachus. This is striking because the Romans were notably tolerant of other sects and religions, owing in part to their polytheistic worldview. A society of many gods implicitly recognizes religious diversity; if there are many such beings, who can claim complete knowledge of the divine realm? Monotheism, in contrast, claims exclusive and absolute knowledge; one God implies one ultimate truth, and other religions with other gods are necessarily false. Thus it is reasonable to assume that the Jews, as the first monotheists of the Middle East, did not reciprocate Roman tolerance. In fact this seems to have been a general rule throughout history: religious intolerance derives from the monotheistic fundamentalists (Jews, Christians, Muslims), not the polytheists or religious pluralists.

In the case of the Jews, though, monotheistic arrogance was combined with racial distinctness and other cultural characteristics, resulting in a deeply-embedded misanthropic streak. They seem to have little concern or true compassion for other races – unless, of course, it serves to benefit them. Authentic altruism seems to be all but lacking. Even towards those who have shown them good will, good will is not returned. Rather, Jews have, historically, abused and oppressed anyone, any non-Jews, if it was in their interests. For centuries Jews have been willing to serve as executors or enforcers of state power (when they had none of their own), with little evident regard for adverse effects on others. In one of the earliest Bible stories, Joseph, son of Jacob, finds favor with the Egyptian pharaoh, only to use his power to exploit the local farmers when a famine strikes.[24] Later we read of the Jews’ ruthless slaughter of the Canaanites, and their brutal support for Ptolemy I in Egypt (cited above).

We see this issue recur even through the present day, with the rather simplistic but essentially valid claim that the question ‘Is it good for the Jews?’ is the overriding factor in Jewish decisions. Others are valued only in an instrumental sense, to serve Jewish ends. Sometimes this appears explicitly, as in the recent statement by leading Orthodox Rabbi Yosef, who said, “Goyim [non-Jews] were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the people of Israel. They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat”.[25] It would be difficult to find a cruder statement of Jewish misanthropy.

Could there be a Biblical basis for this? If the Jews consider themselves ‘chosen,’ clearly everyone else is second class, at best. If God gave the Jews dominion, they can feel justified in imposing on others. The Book of Exodus states, “we are distinct… from all other people that are upon the face of the earth” (33:16). Similarly, the Hebrew tribe is “a people dwelling alone, and not reckoning itself among the nations” (Num 23:9). In Deuteronomy (15:6), Moses tells the Jews “you shall rule over many nations”; “they shall be afraid of you” (28:10). Rabbi Yosef could have quoted Genesis: “Let peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you” (27:29); or Deuteronomy, where God promises Jews “houses full of all good things, which [they] did not fill, and cisterns hewn out, which [they] did not hew, and vineyards and olive trees, which [they] did not plant” (6:11). And outside the Pentateuch, we can read in Isaiah: “Foreigners shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister to you… that men may bring you the wealth of the nations” (60:10-11); or again, “aliens shall stand and feed your flocks, foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers… you shall eat the wealth of the nations” (61:5-6). Is this not explicit misanthropy? And do these texts not express the essential Jewish worldview?

As we will see, Jewish hatred of humanity is not only one of the earliest but also one of the most persistent criticisms. Many prominent commentators over the centuries have observed this especially pernicious trait. And it explains much of Jewish behavior through the present day.

Chapter 2: of Romans and Christians

The turn of the millennium was significant on several counts. Rome had formally become an empire under Augustus, as of 27 BC. Jesus of Nazareth was (allegedly) born 3 BC. Jewish philosopher Philo was active at this time, as was perhaps the most notorious ‘anti-Semite’ of that age, Apion. His notoriety derives not so much from his accusations – which for the most part were preexisting ones – but instead for his renown amongst the upper classes of Alexandrian society, and because the Jewish writer Josephus elected to title one of his own books Against Apion (‘Contra Apionem’). As Stern (1974: 390) says, “Apion was a rather popular writer,” and thus it is no wonder “that it was Apion, among all the anti-Semitic Graeco-Egyptian writers, whom Josephus chose as his main target.” A sample of the criticisms laid by Apion in his book Against the Jews includes:

• The leprosy-ridden Exodus story.
• An etymology of the Jewish term ‘Sabbath’ that derives from ‘tumors of the groin’.
• Numerous tales of Jewish foolishness or naiveté.
• Well-deserved mistreatment by Cleopatra (withholding of corn during a regional famine, and various conflicts with the Jewish king Herod).
• Jews’ failure to erect statues of the emperors.
• Tendency “to show no goodwill to a single alien, above all to Greeks”.
• Unjust laws.
• “Erroneous” religious practices.
• Failure to produce any geniuses in the arts or crafts.
• Not eating pork.
• Circumcision.

Apion evidently supplied something of a catalog of complaints against the Jews, and added a few of his own. This again suggests a lengthy and persistent history of well-deserved criticism.

Additionally, there were solid, objective reasons for the Roman public to be wary in that first century. With the Roman incorporation of Judea in 63 BC, Jews flocked to the imperial capitol in ever-greater numbers. Once again, the authorities took action. Emperor Tiberius expelled them in the year 19 AD:[26]

“He abolished foreign cults, especially the Egyptian and Jewish rites, compelling all who were addicted to such superstitions to burn their religious vestments… [Other Jews] were banished from the city, on pain of slavery for life if they did not obey.”

The expulsion did not last. Eleven years later, the head of the Praetorian Guard, Sejanus, found reason to oppose them again. According to the Jewish writer Philo, Sejanus raised a series of “accusations which had been brought against the Jews who were dwelling in Rome,” because “[he] was desirous to destroy our nation.”[27] We know few details, but this action too seems to have had little lasting effect.

Just three years later, in the year 33, a young Jew named Jesus was crucified. This would have monumental consequence for Jewish relations with the rest of the world, though it would be several decades before they began to play out.[28]

In 38, another pogrom, nominally worse than that of Sejanus, was initiated by A. A. Flaccus in Alexandria.[29] Philo describes this event in great detail in his work Against Flaccus. His many advisors urged Flaccus to curry favor with Rome “by abandoning and denouncing all the Jews” of Alexandria, lest they gain too much power. The advisors encouraged random attacks on synagogues and Jewish property, hoping that the pogrom would spread to other lands. Flaccus ended Jewish privilege, reducing them to stateless “foreigners and aliens.” He terminated their right to run businesses, and money-lenders lost what they had loaned. His men drove the Jews out of most areas of the city and confined them in one small quarter, effectively forming the first Jewish ghetto in history. Finally, Flaccus “allowed anyone who was inclined to proceed to exterminate the Jews as prisoners of war.”

So confined, they were set upon by a murderous crowd. In a long passage that ranks with the best tales of the Holocaust, Philo describes the massacre:

“And then, being immediately seized by those who had excited the seditious multitude against them, [the Jews] were treacherously put to death, and then were dragged along and trampled under foot by the whole city, and completely destroyed, without the least portion of them being left which could possibly receive burial; and in this way their enemies, who in their savage madness had become transformed into the nature of wild beasts, slew them and thousands of others with all kinds of agony and tortures, and newly invented cruelties, for wherever they met with or caught sight of a Jew, they stoned him, or beat him with sticks, not at once delivering their blows upon mortal parts, lest they should die speedily, and so speedily escape from the sufferings which it was their design to inflict upon them.

Some persons even, going still great and greater lengths in the iniquity and license of their barbarity, disdained all blunter weapons, and took up the most efficacious arms of all, fire and iron, and slew many with the sword, and destroyed not a few with flames. And the most merciless of all their persecutors in some instances burnt whole families, husbands with their wives, and infant children with their parents, in the middle of the city, sparing neither age nor youth, nor the innocent helplessness of infants. And when they had a scarcity of fuel, they collected faggots of green wood, and slew them by the smoke rather than by fire, contriving a still more miserable and protracted death for those unhappy people, so that their bodies laid about promiscuously in every direction half burnt, a grievous and most miserable sight.

And if some of those who were employed in the collection of sticks were too slow, they took their own furniture, of which they had plundered them, to burn their persons, robbing them of their most costly articles, and burning with them things of the greatest use and value, which they used as fuel instead of ordinary timber.

Many men too, who were alive, they bound by one foot, fastening them round the ankle, and thus they dragged them along and bruised them, leaping on them, designing to inflict the most barbarous of deaths upon them, and then when they were dead they raged no less against them with interminable hostility, and inflicted still heavier insults on their persons, dragging them, I had almost said, through all the alleys and lanes of the city, until the corpse, being lacerated in all its skin, and flesh, and muscles from the inequality and roughness of the ground, all the previously united portions of his composition being torn asunder and separated from one another, was actually torn to pieces.” (Flaccus, IX, 65-71)

Note the italicized passage; this would be the first recorded incident in history of the gassing of Jews.[30]

But Flaccus was unable to finish his evil deed. In time-honored Jewish fashion, the Alexandrian Jews appealed to higher authorities in Rome and managed to get Flaccus arrested, exiled, and ultimately killed. All this, however, is according to Philo – not an unbiased observer. The fact that we have no objective confirmation of this story suggests that it is exaggerated and over-dramatized.

Whether or not the Alexandrian pogrom occurred as described, there is no doubt that it was a time of on-going friction between the Jews, on the one hand, and the Greeks and Egyptians on the other. Three years later, in the year 41, emperor Claudius issued his third edict, the Letter to the Alexandrians, in which he admonishes all parties for the strife; but the Jews are singled out for rebuke. They have been allowed to live “in a city which is not their own,” and “they possess an abundance of all good things,” but must not exacerbate the situation by continually inviting in more Jews. In abusing their privileges and sowing discord, the Jews could be blamed for “fomenting a general plague which infests the whole world” (koinen teina tes oikoumenes noson exegeirontas).

The threat itself is not so harsh, but what is striking here is the use, for the first time, of the notorious ‘biological’ imagery against the Jews. To suggest that they are a plague infesting the whole world is to suggest a subhuman people, one that is potentially in need of ‘disinfection.’ Such talk recurs periodically in the following centuries, and it foreshadows the much more ominous language of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Back in Rome, anti-Jewish actions continued. In 49, Claudius once again had to expel them. In a fascinating line from Suetonius circa the year 120, we find mention of one ‘Chrestus’ (Latin: Chresto) as the leader of the rabble; this would (likely) be one of the first non-Jewish references to Jesus. “Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, [Claudius] expelled them from Rome” (Divus Claudius, 25:4).[31] This is an important first distinction, between the so-called Christian Jews – all early Christians were Jews – and the traditional ones.

* * *

In spite of all this, the beleaguered tribe still earned no sympathy. The great philosopher Seneca commented on them in his work On Superstition, circa 60. He was appalled not only with their “superstitious” religious beliefs, but more pragmatically with their astonishing influence in Rome and around the known world, despite repeated pogroms and banishments. Seneca first derides the Jews as lazy because they dedicate every seventh day to God: “their practice [of the Sabbath] is inexpedient, because by introducing one day of rest in every seven they lose in idleness almost a seventh of their life…”.[32] “Meanwhile,” he adds,

“the customs of this accursed race (sceleratissima gens) have gained such influence that they are now received throughout all the world. The vanquished have given laws to their victors.”

Seneca is clearly indignant – and perhaps even jealous – at their reach. This little race, this accursed race, has earned sway across vast reaches of the civilized world. Not so much a threat, it would seem, but rather a sign of the gradual decay of the imperium Romanum.

Writing at the same time as Seneca, Petronius took a quick stab at two Jewish customs: abstinence from pork, and circumcision. In his Satyricon he writes, “The Jew may worship his pig-god and clamor in the ears of high heaven, but unless he also cuts back his foreskin with the knife, he shall [not truly live as a Jew]” (frag. 37).[33]

Then came the historic Jewish revolt in Judea, during the years 66 to 70. I won’t recount the details here, but simply note that it ended in Roman victory and the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem. It was a major defeat for the Hebrews, but they would continue to resist for decades. Two further major uprisings occurred in 115 and 130, both ending in defeat as well. Nonetheless, Jewish influence and the nascent Judeo-Chris­tian theology continued to grow, and to weaken the philosophical foundations of the empire.

Tacitus and the Second Century AD

The second century of the Christian era saw a continued string of critical comments, for the most part reiterations of past complaints. Quintillian (circa 100) observed that, just as cities can bring together and exacerbate the problem of social undesirables, so too Moses knit together scattered individuals into a single Jewish tribe: “founders of cities are detested [when] concentrating a race which is a curse (perniciosam – i.e. pernicious) to others, as for example the founder of the Jewish superstition”.[34] Damocritus’s book Peri Ioudaion (On the Jews) argued that “they used to worship an asinine golden head, and that every seventh year they caught a foreigner and sacrificed him”[35] – in contrast to the story by Manetho in which the sacrifice was an annual event.

One new criticism came from the writings of Roman poet Martial (aka Marcus Martialis). In the fourth book of his Epigrams he undertakes to lambast an acquaintance of his, one Bassa, by calling attention to his evidently horrible body odor. To drive the point home, Martial compares Bassa’s smell to a host of notoriously pungent things: the odor of a drained marsh, the “sulphurous waters of Albula,” “the putrid stench of a marine fish-pond,” someone’s old shoes, and…”the breath of the fasting Jews” (quod ieiunia sabbatariarum).[36] It is widely known, even today, that fasting can produce or exacerbate bad breath, and the ancient Jews were infamous for fasting on the Sabbath day; hence the correlation is perfectly understandable. Still, Martial’s point comes through quite clearly: Jewish breath was a benchmark of foul smell. More importantly, Martial established the historical precedent for the so-called foetor Judaicus – the “Jewish stench” critique that would recur at various times throughout history.

The renowned writer and philosopher Plutarch made several comments on Jews, mostly neutral observations but occasionally interspersed with statements about their “superstitions” and odd habit of keeping the Sabbath. His dialogue Morals (IV, 4) includes an examination of the nature of the Jewish God, and of the question “Whether the Jews abstain from pork because of reverence or aversion for the pig.” (He concludes that they worship the pig, in addition to the ass.)

This brings us to Tacitus – one of the great historians of the ancient world, and one of the most notable critics of the tribe from Judea. His chief work, Histories, is an invaluable historical study, but an initial observation comes from his other main piece, Annals (circa 115 AD). Amidst an examination of the great fire of Rome that had occurred back in the year 64, Tacitus comments on the Jews and that new Jewish cult, Christianity:[37]

“Nero… punished with the utmost refinements… a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians (Chrestianos). Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more – not merely in Judaea, the home of the disease, but in the capital [Rome] itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue.” (XV, 44)

The Jews, he continues, were persecuted not so much for involvement with the fire as simply because of their misanthropy, their “hatred of the human race” (odio humani generis). So severe was Nero that, in some cases, Jews “were burned to serve as lamps by night.” Tacitus’ comments clearly indicate the low status of the Jews: loathsome, vice-ridden, pernicious, superstitious… even, ominously, a “disease” – a striking biological metaphor that recalls Claudius. The reference to ‘Christus’ is significant; it predates Suetonius’ comment by some 20 years, and marks the earliest Roman acknowledgment of the founder of the new religion.

But it is the Histories – written about the year 100 – that contains an extended critique of the Jews. In Book V, Tacitus recounts historical events from the year 70 AD. Roman general Titus had been sent to subjugate Judea once and for all. He found allies in the indigenous Arabs, “who hated the Jews with all that hatred that is common among neighbors” (5.1). The enmities of that region are truly deep-seated.

Tacitus then breaks off the narrative to give an account of the origin of the Jews – that “race of men hateful to the gods” (genus hominum invisium deis). He offers two or three variations, apparently siding with Manetho. The religion of Moses, he adds, is diametrically opposed to that of the Romans: “The Jews regard as profane all that we hold sacred; on the other hand, they permit all that we abhor.” He continues:

“Whatever their origin, these rites are maintained by their antiquity: the other customs of the Jews are base and abominable (sinistra foeda), and owe their persistence to their depravity. For the worst rascals among other peoples… always kept sending tribute and contributions to Jerusalem, thereby increasing the wealth of the Jews; again, the Jews are extremely loyal toward one another, and always ready to show compassion, but toward every other people they feel only hate and enmity (hostile odium).”

“As a race,” he adds, “they are prone to lust,” and have “adopted circumcision to distinguish themselves from other peoples” (5.5). Tacitus notes their abstract monotheism, suggesting that this is yet another cause of friction. He closes the section with the comment that “the ways of the Jews are preposterous (absurdus) and mean (sordidus).”

In besieging Jerusalem, and later the mighty Jewish temple, Titus had the Jews trapped, explains Tactitus. There was thought of sparing the temple, but the Romans opposed this option. For Titus, “the destruction of this temple [was] a prime necessity in order to wipe out (tolleretur) more completely the religion of the Jews and the Christians.” These two religions, “although hostile to each other, nevertheless sprang from the same sources; the Christians had grown out of the Jews: if the root were destroyed, the stock would easily perish” (Fragments of the Histories). The passage closes by noting that 600,000 Jews were killed in the war.

Such are Tacitus’ comments on the “obnoxious and superstitious race” (gens superstitioni obnoxia; 5.13) – a group who are the “most despised” (despectissima) of subjects and “the basest of peoples” (taeterrimam gentum; 5.8). Both because of his clear articulation and his general authority, Tacitus is the single most-cited ancient authority regarding criticism of the Jews. Many later scholars, including Gibbon, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, quote him on the topic.

Present-day Jewish authors, on the other hand, are hard-pressed to account for such a negative assessment; it would be a real challenge, for example, to portray Tacitus as mentally ill. Most often one finds an attempt to whitewash the whole affair, ascribing Tacitus’ remarks to ‘the spirit of the times,’ or as merely reactionary. Erich Gruen (2011) is typical. He spends several pages arguing that Tacitus wasn’t portraying his own personal opinion, but rather simply making a sarcastic social commentary in order to “tease” and “challenge” the reader. The Histories give us not the historian’s own view, says Gruen, but “a sardonic comment on simplistic stereotypes.” Tacitus omits the “far harsher assessments” of Manetho and Apion, and “does not deliver his own judgment.” In sum, “we hear the voice of the sardonic historian, not the Jew hater” (2011: 190, 192). Unlikely, to say the least.

* * *

The second Jewish revolt, in 115, gave further cause for critique. Cassius Dio describes the action graphically in his Roman History:

“Meanwhile the Jews in the region of Cyrene had put a certain Andreas at their head, and were destroying both the Romans and the Greeks. They would eat the flesh of their victims, make belts for themselves of their entrails, anoint themselves with their blood, and wear their skins for clothing; many they sawed in two, from the head downwards; others they gave to wild beasts, and still others they forced to fight as gladiators.” (Book 68.32)

Here we have the Philo problem, in reverse: Should we believe Dio’s extreme statements about the viciousness of the Jews, or is he exaggerating? We have no directly comparable account, but it is roughly consistent with both Manetho’s and Lysimachus’ Exodus stories and accompanying Jewish brutalities. The question remains open.

But it was perhaps such incidences that prompted Juvenal and Suetonius to comment. In his famous Satires, Juvenal (ca. 120) makes at least three references to Jews. The first is a jab at the allegedly incestuous relationship between the Jewish king Agrippa II and his sister Berenice, rulers of “that barbarian country… where pigs are free to live to a ripe old age” (6.153-160). Later he remarks on a poor Jewess fortune-teller, begging for coins:

“This High Priestess has to live under a tree, but she knows all the secrets of Heaven. She, too, will fill her palm, but not too full: a few coppers purchase, where Jews are concerned, fulfillment of dreams and fancies.” (6.542-547)

Finally, in the 14th satire, Juvenal ridicules the Jews’ customs of circumcision, worshipping a ‘sky god,’ avoiding pork, keeping the Sabbath, and the generally adverse effects on their children (14.96-106):

“Those whose lot it was that their fathers worshipped the Sabbath
Pray to nothing now but the clouds and a spirit in Heaven;
Since their fathers abstained from pork, they’d be cannibals sooner
Than violate that taboo. Circumcised, not as the Gentiles,
They despise Roman law, but learn and observe and revere
Israel’s code, and all from the sacred volume of Moses
Where the way is not shown to any but true believers,
Where the uncircumcised are never led to the fountain.
Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it lazy. The father,
Setting this day apart from life, is the cause and culprit.”

Suetonius, writing about the reign of Domitian (81-96 AD), makes a passing comment on the ‘Jew tax’ (Iudaicus fiscus) that was levied after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. “Besides other taxes, that on the Jews was levied with the utmost vigor…”.[38] Many Jews attempted to hide their race simply to avoid the tax, and it was sometimes necessary, he says, to strip men naked and check for circumcision as proof. This tax continued well into the 200s.

The third and final Jewish uprising occurred just a few years later, in 132. The reasons for this were many, but two stand out: the construction of a Roman city on the ruins of Jerusalem, and emperor Hadrian’s banning of circumcision: “At this time the Jews began war, because they were forbidden to practice genital mutilation (mutilare genitalia)”.[39]

Dio describes the conflict in detail. “Jews everywhere were showing signs of hostility to the Romans, partly by secret and partly overt acts” (Roman History 69.13). They were able to bribe others to join in the uprising: “many outside nations, too, were joining them through eagerness for gain, and the whole earth, one might almost say, was being stirred up over the matter.” For those today who argue that Jews were perennially the cause of wars, this would provide some early evidence. Hadrian sent one of his best generals, Severus, to put down the insurgency. Through a slow war of attrition, “he was able… to crush, exhaust, and exterminate (ekkophai) them. Very few of them in fact survived.” Mary Boatwright estimates that 580,000 Jews were killed.[40]

To close this section, two final figures of the second century. Famed astronomer Ptolemy was also a bit of an astrologer, and took to using the stars to explain earthly conditions. In his Apotelesmatica of 150 AD, Ptolemy observes that the tribes of Palestine, including Idumaea, Syria, Judea, and Phoenicia, have some common characteristics.

“These people… are more gifted in trade and exchange; they are more unscrupulous, despicable cowards, treacherous, servile, and in general fickle, on account of the stars mentioned. [The Judaeans in particular] are in general bold, godless, and scheming.” (II, 3)[41]

‘Born under a bad sign,’ as they say. Given the four centuries of conflict with the people of that region, Ptolemy can hardly be blamed for viewing them as cursed by the heavens.

Finally we have Celsus, a Greek philosopher who composed a text, The True Word, sometime around 178. The piece is striking as an extended and scathing critique of the newly-emerging Christian sect.[42] It survives only as extended quotations in Origen’s book of the year 248, Contra Celsum.

Celsus’s target is clearly Christianity, but in the process he makes a number of remarks on the Jews – all negative. Beginning with Moses, the Jews “were deluded by clumsy deceits into thinking that there was only one God” (I.23). They were “addicted to sorcery” and thus “fell into error through ignorance and were deceived.” Celsus mocks “the race of Jews and Christians,” comparing them all “to a cluster of bats or ants coming out of a nest, or frogs holding council round a marsh, or worms assembling in some filthy corner, disagreeing with each other about which of them are the worse sinners” (IV.23). (More biological imagery.) “The Jews,” he adds, “were runaway slaves who escaped from Egypt; they never did anything important, nor have they ever been of any significance or prominence.” Fate has been justifiably harsh to them, and they are “suffering the penalty of their arrogance” (V.41).

Judeo-Christian theology, says Celsus, is a mish-mash of mythology and absurdity. “The God of the Jews is accursed” because he created, or allowed, evil in the world – a classic statement of the Problem of Evil. The cosmogony of Genesis is ridiculous, as is the creation story of mankind; “Moses wrote these stories because he understood nothing… [He] put together utter trash” (VI.49). In the long run Jewry is doomed – ”they will presently perish” (VI.80).

An Empire Declines, a Religion Ascends

Events turned sour for Rome during the 200s. Imperial expansion had peaked by 120 AD, and the Goths and Persians mounted increasingly successful attacks. Roman leadership became harsher and more authoritarian; suppression of foreign religions and cults increased, with particular focus on Christianity.

Dio’s Roman History, dating to 220, made a notably grim assessment of things. Above I quoted his passages relating to the revolts in 115 and 132, but he makes a few other relevant comments. Book 37 relates the initial capture of Jerusalem by Pompey, and thus the first direct encounter with the Jews. “They are distinguished from the rest of mankind in practically every detail of life.” One must proceed carefully, Dio suggests, “for the race is very bitter when aroused to anger” (49.22). Near the end of the work he mentions the ‘Jew tax’ – ”an annual tribute of two denarii” (65.7) – that we saw in the fragment from Suetonius.

Ten years later, the Greek sophist and writer Philostratus produced a biography of the philosopher Apollonius of Tyana, who lived a century earlier. In the midst of a passage attacking the cruelty of Nero, Philostratus remarks on the Roman military’s penchant for battling Jews rather than dealing with problems at home:

“The Jews have long been in revolt not only against the Romans, but against all humanity (panton anthropon); and a race that has made its own a life apart and irreconcilable, that cannot share with the rest of mankind in the pleasures of the table nor join in their libations or prayers or sacrifices, are separated from ourselves by a greater gulf than divides us from Susa or Bactra or the more distant Indies.” (V.33.4)

Dio and Philostratus are raising the stakes: Not only are the Jews enemies of humanity, they are profoundly different than the rest – separated by a vast gulf, different in every detail.

The persistence of the charge of misanthropy is remarkable. It appears yet again in a work by Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry, in his work Adversus Christianos (Against the Christians), circa 280. Writing a tract comparable to that of Celsus, Porphyry also draws in the Jews. He comments on the “foreign mythologies” of the Jews (I, 2), seen as “evil report among all men.” The Jews, he adds, are “the impious enemies of all nations.”

Justinus – also known as Justin the Historian – composed his lengthy Historiarum Philippicarum in the year 300. Book 36 addresses the origin of the Jews. He reiterates the leprosy exodus story of Manetho: The Egyptians, “being troubled with scabies and leprosy… expelled [Moses], with those who had the disease, out of Egypt.” In an interesting and benign twist, the Jews, being concerned about spreading their disease, voluntarily adopt a policy of disengagement:

“And as they remembered that they had been driven from Egypt for fear of spreading infection, they took care, in order that they might not become odious, from the same cause, to the inhabitants of the country, to have no communication with strangers; a rule which, from having been adopted on that particular occasion, gradually became a custom and part of their religion.” (36.2)

After establishing themselves in Judea, they created a form of theocracy that merged religion with politics. This gave them a cohesiveness and unity of purpose that proved highly successful. As a result, “it is almost incredible how powerful they became.”

Chapter 3: Transition to a Christian Worldview

“For Christians, Jews were eternal strangers.”

—J. Hood (1995:22)

After 300, the Empire went into steady decline and Christianity began to assert its power. Emperor Constantine converted in 312, giving the young religion official endorsement. In 380, emperor Theodosius I effectively made it the state religion. By this time there was a clear distinction between the Gentile Christian church, and the orthodox Jews. As a result of this, and due to the ‘family feud’ involved with Christianity arising from Judaism, and the Jews ‘killing Christ,’ conditions for the Hebrew tribe worsened.

A series of imperial legislative actions between 329 and 438 specifically targeted the Jews. We have detailed records of many of these:

• Constantine’s edict of 18 October 329 bars the Jews from punishing anyone choosing to “escape from their deadly sect.” Conversely, anyone electing to join “their nefarious sect” will be punished.
• His successor, Constantine II, warned against Jews who proselytized women “in depravity” (turpitudinis).
• On 21 May 383, Gratian warns those who have “polluted themselves with the Jewish contagions” (Iudaicis semet polluere contagiis) that they shall be punished.
• Honorius decreed, on 1 April 409, that none shall “adopt the abominable and vile name of the Jews”; no one must accept “the Jewish perversity (perversitatem), which is alien to the Roman Empire.”
• On 31 January 438, Theodosius II referred to “the blindly senseless Jews,” calling them “monstrous heretics” and an “abominable sect,” and declared that “no Jew… should accede to honors and dignities”.[43]

All was not hopeless. A joint edict of 6 August 420 stated that “No one shall be destroyed for being a Jew”.[44] But it adds a warning, “lest the Jews grow perchance insolent, and elated by their security, commit something rash against the reverence of the Christian cult (cultionis).”

Emperor Julian (reign 355-363) was an interesting and complex character. Rather like Aurelius, he was both a great military commander and a notable writer and philosopher. Christianity had been accepted within the empire since 310, but Julian strongly opposed it. He much preferred the values and beliefs of the original Roman republic. Thus he sought to mitigate the growing power of the Christians. One way to do this was to elevate the status of their chief rival, Judaism; Julian thereby became a ‘friend of the Jews,’ though only in so far as they served his larger purposes. In reality he had a profound dislike of the entire Judeo-Christian worldview.

This aspect of his thinking appears in his essay Contra Galilaeus (Against the Galileans), circa 361. He criticizes those who would leave Christianity for Judaism as a kind of leap from the frying pan into the fire – something no reasonable person would do. “The philosophers,” he says, “bid us to imitate the gods so far as we can. … But what sort of imitation of God is praised among the Hebrews? Anger and wrath and fierce jealousy” (171d‑e). God evidently does not favor the Jews, because “he bestowed on the Hebrews nothing considerable or of great value” (176a). They indeed imitate the cruelty of their god: “the most wicked and most brutal of the [Roman] generals behaved more mildly to the greatest offenders than Moses did to those who had done no wrong” (184c). They who abandon Roman ways “emulate the rages and the bitterness of the Jews.” The Jewish race has given rise to no great leaders, generals, intellectuals, artists, nor even a civilized society; government, law courts, laws, liberal arts… “were not all these things in a miserable and barbarous state among the Hebrews?” (221e). In the end, of course, Julian failed to either raise up the Jews or to halt the slide toward Christianity. He died in battle in the year 363, at only 32 years of age.

Julian’s close confidant, Ammianus Marcellinus, was also one of the last great Roman historians of ancient times. In his History, Ammianus recounts the journey of emperor Aurelius through the Middle East, whereupon he encountered the Jews; apparently it was not a pleasant experience:[45]

“For Marcus [Aurelius], as he was passing through Palestine on his way to Egypt, being often disgusted with the malodorous (fetentium) and rebellious Jews, is reported to have cried with sorrow: ‘O Marcomanni, O Quadi, O Sarmatians, at last I have found a people more unruly than you.’”

As usual, the veracity of this report is questionable, as we have no confirming statements. But even if this was Ammianus’ own view, it is noteworthy. The reference to ‘malodorous Jews’ recalls Martial; and in fact both of these sources would be repeatedly cited in later centuries.

Into the 400s, we find the work of prominent Roman poet Rutilius Namatianus. His lone surviving piece, De Reditu Suo, casts light on many aspects of the late period of the Empire. Rutilius relates a story of how he was pausing to rest beside a pond one day, on land that turned out to be owned by a Jew. The Jew demands a fee for the use of his land (I, 385-398):[46]

“We pay the abuse due to the filthy race
that famously practices circumcision;
a root of silliness they are:
chill Sabbaths are after their own heart,
yet their heart is chillier than their creed.
Each seventh day is condemned to ignoble sloth,
as ‘twere an effeminate picture of the god fatigued.
The other wild ravings from their lying bazaar methinks
not even a child in his sleep could believe.
And would that Judea had never been subdued
by Pompey’s wars and Titus’ military power!
The infection of this plague, though excised,
still creeps abroad the more:
and ‘tis their own conquerors that a conquered race keeps down.”

Again we find the biological metaphors, harsher than ever. The “infection of this plague” (pestis contagia) suggests once more the need for disinfection, if not outright extermination.

In any case, Rome’s time was past. The empire fractured into two realms in 395, just 15 years after Theodosius made Christianity the state religion. The classical (western) half would survive another 80 years, until its final collapse in 476. The Popes and the church filled the void, shepherding Europe through the Dark Ages. Antagonism toward the Jews took a decidedly theological turn, which combined with preexisting cultural, moral, and racial antipathies to produce a complex and fascinating anti-Jewish worldview.

Thus it is clear, and indisputable, that the vast majority of ancient remarks on the Jews were negative. This is not a consequence of mere ‘cherry-picking’ of critical comments but rather a reflection of the reality of the situation – a reality acknowledged by most scholars in the field. Margaret Williams (1998: 161) indirectly reinforces this point in her discussion of a passage from Strabo, which is “one of the few favorable treatments of Judaism to survive from Graeco-Roman antiquity.” And Jerry Daniel (1979: 46-64) observes this:

“A survey of the comments about Jews in the Hellenistic-Roman literature shows that they were almost universally disliked… The great majority of the comments in the literature are negative. … [I]t is certain that [Jews] were perceived to be low on the intellectual ladder… The frequency and intensity of the disparaging remarks justifies the conclusion that anti-Semitism was more deeply ingrained and more widespread than many modern scholars allow.”

Anti-Jewish attitudes were unquestionably extensive and persistent in the ancient world. This is not a coincidence, and it’s not just bad luck. There is clearly something endemic to the Jewish people that elicits such remarks.

An analysis of these comments finds a number of enduring themes that form the basis for this generally anti-Jewish stance. In summary, these reasons include: a crude fixation on money and material wealth; human sacrifice (or “blood libel”); misanthropy; cursed by the gods; cowardly and reckless; failure to contribute to civilization; superstitious; disproportionately powerful; ‘pushy’; malodorous; marked by genital mutilation (circumcision); lazy (no work on the Sabbath); seditious; vice-ridden; and, generally speaking, a plague on humanity.

To emphasize, these were not mindless expressions of rage or brute anti-Semitism. These were objective and well-considered observations by the brightest men of the age, commenting on a set of real and non-trivial social problems. Rome was a tolerant and inclusive society; the writers were educated and open-minded individuals, with no evident predisposition to be anti-Jewish. This was simply their experience based on centuries of interaction with the tribe from Judea.

Such complaints form the historical basis for an enduring and deeply-rooted anti-Jewish attitude that can be found throughout much of the world, and throughout much of history. Many of these themes recur to the present day, and their origins and evolution reveal important aspects of modern-day Jews. More broadly we can infer that the critics are citing objective, concrete characteristics of the Jewish people, ones that are largely independent of Judaism per se. These negative qualities seem rooted in the genetic (i.e. racial) constitution of the Jews, and this suggests an explanation for their persistence across cultures and over time.

Early Middle Ages and the Rise of the Church

The Western Roman Empire entered its final years in the 5th century AD. The Church was ascendant, and would soon begin a thousand-year domination of European culture. Christianity from its start was in tension with the Jewish community, as we know from the story of Jesus and his disciples. All the early Christians were Jews, but they were in revolt against both the elite (Jewish) Pharisees and the dominant Roman Empire. Jesus and his followers made enemies on both fronts, and both were complicit in his death. But even if we are inclined to disbelieve the traditional story of Christ – and there is good reason to doubt it – we still have his disciples to deal with. On some interpretations, Paul, along with Luke, Mark, and Peter, deliberately undertook to challenge the Romans by creating an alternate moral system and, in fact, a completely new worldview – one that involved a savior come to earth. This action put the small band of rebels in conflict with an age-old Jewish tradition that was still awaiting its savior. To have any hope of undermining support for Rome, the newly-minted Christian story had to draw in as many gentiles as possible. Christianity thus, at the very start, pitted (lowly) Jew against (elite) Jew and all against Rome. As the movement expanded beyond its Jewish origins, and Rome disintegrated, the central conflict to remain was Christian against Jew.

But again, in the early years both Jews and non-Jewish Christians were allied against Rome, and they had little reason to disagree. Thus it was that, at this time, we find only mild criticism of the Jews – two examples being Tertullian’s Adversus Judaeos and Hippolytus’s Expository Treatise against the Jews, both written circa 200. These offer only the faintest rebukes, and serve primarily to distinguish the nascent Christians from their Jewish roots. But then Emperor Constantine converted in 315, and by 380 Theodosius had declared Christianity as the state religion; the Empire would then disintegrate within a few decades. That final Christian century of the Empire saw the rise of much stronger anti-Jewish sentiments, as it became clear that the two sibling religions would be vying for control.

Four of the most important early church fathers – Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome, John Chrysostom, and Augustine – were notably anti-Jewish. Writing in the late 300s, Gregory blasts the Jews as the absolute dregs of humanity, deploying an impressive array of adjectives:[47]

“Murderers of the Lord, murderers of prophets, rebels and full of hatred against God, they commit outrage against the law, resist God’s grace, repudiate the faith of their fathers. They are confederates of the devil, offspring of vipers, scandal-mongers, slanderers, darkened in mind, leaven of the Pharisees, Sanhedrin of demons, accursed, utterly vile, quick to abuse, enemies of all that is good. (In Christi resurr. orat., 5).”

Clearly there is more here than a religious family feud; Gregory evidently finds something deeply objectionable in the Jews themselves.

Similar thoughts are portrayed in the writings of Jerome (347-420), a Christian abbot in Bethlehem. Jaher (1994: 30) suggests that Jerome “anticipated modern anti-Semitism propaganda by predicting the emergence of an infernal Jewish conspiracy for global domination.” In 407 Jerome wrote that the Antichrist would be “born of the Jewish people”; “by means of intrigue and deception,” the Jews would “persecute the people of Christ [and] rule the world.” Of course, it turned out that this was not merely “propaganda” but a strikingly accurate prediction, one that would take some 1500 years to materialize.

Speaking of the synagogue, Jerome wrote, “If you call it a brothel, a den of vice, the Devil’s refuge, Satan’s fortress, a place to deprave the soul… you are still saying less than it deserves.”[48] Hood (1995: 16) adds that he “accused the Jews of almost every imaginable vice, but avarice, drunkenness, gluttony, and licentiousness were his favorites.” Living as he did directly amongst them, Jerome undoubtedly had considerable firsthand experience.

* * *

Of all the early church fathers, Chrysostom is widely viewed as the most openly hostile. Of particular note is his work Adversus Judaeos, commonly called Homilies against the Jews (387 AD).[49] The first homily captures the essence of his attack. He begins with mention of a “very serious illness” that pervades society. “What is this disease? The festivals of the pitiful and miserable Jews” which were soon to commence (I.I.4). “But do not be surprised that I call the Jews pitiable,” he adds. “They really are pitiable and miserable” (I.II.1). Citing Biblical precedent, Chrysostom refers to them as dogs, and as “stiff-necked.” They are drawn to gluttony and drunkenness (I.II.5), and chiefly characterized by their lust for animal pleasures. Indeed, they are animals, though of a worthless kind: “Although such beasts are unfit for work, they are fit for killing” (I.II.6) – a shocking call from this man of God. “And this is what happened to the Jews: while they were making themselves unfit for work, they grew fit for slaughter.” He even cites Biblical mandate here, from the Gospel of Luke (19:27): “This is why Christ said, ‘But as for these my enemies,… bring them here and slay them’.”

Chrysostom disparages the religious rituals of the synagogue: “[The Jews] drag into the synagogue the whole theater, actors and all. For there is no difference between the theater and the synagogue” (I.II.7). “That place is a brothel,” he adds. “It is also a den of robbers and a lodging for wild beasts.” In fact it has become no less than “the dwelling of demons” (I.III.1) – as “the Jews themselves are demons” (I.VI.3).

He then raises a fundamental metaphysical dispute. The Christian testament speaks of a bifurcated afterlife: either eternal bliss with God in heaven, or eternal damnation. “But the Jews,” says Chrysostom,

“neither know nor dream of these things.[50] They live for their bellies, they gape for the things of this world, their condition is no better than that of pigs or goats because of their wanton ways and excessive gluttony. They know but one thing: to fill their bellies and be drunk…” (I.IV.1)

Then there are the standard charges of the Jews as Christ-killers, and as failing to properly honor the old prophets: “And so it is that we must hate both them and their synagogue all the more because of the offensive treatment of those holy men.” On a more practical level, the Jews are to be shunned because of “their plundering, their covetousness, their abandonment of the poor, their thefts, their cheating in trade” (I.VII.1) – charges that relate to fundamental cultural and ethnic traits, rather than religion.

And once again we find reference to the bad smell – the foetor Judaicus – that seems to accompany the Jews. This time, though, it comes from the alleged sacrificial burning of human victims that attends the synagogue festival, and the potent incense used to cover it up: “Yet what is carried up from the altar is the odor and smoke from burning bodies, and nothing is more malodorous than such a savor. … Scripture calls… the incense an abomination because the intention of those offering it reeked with a great stench” (I.VII.3).

For all these reasons, says Chrysostom, we must “turn away from them, since they are the common disgrace and infection of the whole world” (I.VI.7) – recalling Claudius’ imagery of a “general plague that infests the whole world.” Finally, Chrysostom appeals to his Christian reader to not fear the Jews’ sorcery and black powers; “the Jews frighten you as if you were little children, and you do not see it” (I.III.7). Such a sentiment could be repeated in the present day, as many gentiles seem to act in evident fear of hidden Jewish power of retribution, as if afraid of some evil spell.

We lack direct evidence, but such forceful talk by prominent church leaders no doubt encouraged discrimination and violence against the Jews, and likely contributed, for example, to their expulsion from Alexandria in the year 414.

Augustine is the most famous and influential of this early group, and he is also the most understated in his criticism. On the one hand, he views the Jews as “incurably ‘carnal,’ blind to spiritual meaning, perfidious, faithless, and apostate.”[51] In his Adversus Judaeos, circa 425, he denounces them for ignoring the revealed truth about God – an especially pernicious crime, since it was handed to them and yet they refused it. Consequently, “they are themselves the builders of destruction and rejecters of the corner-stone.”[52] John Cavadini (1999: 13) explains that, in the Adversus, Augustine adopts “a more negative image” of the Jews than in his other writings, casting upon them sole blame for the crucifixion (“It was the Jews who held [Jesus]; the Jews who insulted him; the Jews who bound him; the Jews who crowned him with thorns; who soiled him with their spit; who whipped him; who ridiculed him; who hung him on the cross; who stabbed his body with their spears”).[53] Augustine furthermore links them with many ignoble characteristics; they are “blind, stubborn, sick,” and lacking in understanding.

On the other hand, the Jews are ‘living witnesses’ to the truth of the Christian story, and thus ought to be preserved, not destroyed, because they serve as enduring testimony. This is made clear in Augustine’s City of God:

“[T]he Jews who killed [Christ] refused to believe in him… They were dispersed all over the world – for indeed there is no part of the earth where they are not to be found – and thus by evidence of their own Scriptures they bear witness for us that we have not fabricated the prophecies about Christ. … [T]hey supply for our benefit by the possession and preservation of those books… [Were they not scattered, we] would not have them available among all nations as witnesses to the prophecies which were given beforehand concerning Christ.” (Book 18)

Augustine thus introduces a tension into Christian-Jewish relations that endures today. The Jews are ignorant and blind, yet confirm the truth of the Bible. They must be preserved as living relics, but not allowed to hold sway over society or the minds of men. This sense of “destructive ambivalence”[54] would both justify and forestall violence against the Jews for centuries.

Toward the Renaissance

With the final collapse of Rome in 476 and the onset of the early Middle Ages (the ‘Dark Ages’), the Church began a long, gradual climb toward dominance of European culture and society. Jews remained on the periphery – though never far from the seat of power. Charlemagne (circa 800) treated them with a kind of political expediency, allowing a modest degree of freedom in business and commerce but restricting their abilities to proselytize. Charlemagne’s son, Louis the Pious (778-840), was notably friendly toward the Jews, and enacted a charter of privilege for them. Evidently he was of the view that he would personally profit from a Jewish alliance. Jews of the realm were, at that time, “militant, aggressive, and powerful,”[55] and were heavily involved in the growing slave trade of Europe. This fact, combined with their imperial charter, meant that Jews were in a superior social position even than the Christians.

This situation drew the attention of archbishop Agobard of Lyon, who complained to Louis in a letter of 826 titled “On the insolence of the Jews.” The Jews, he writes, “set up a persecuting faction against the Church,” targeted at Agobard himself. Furthermore, “the Jews daily curse Jesus Christ and the Christians,” engage in slave trading of Christians, and pass off their unclean meats to the unsuspecting Gentile public. In sum, the Jews are “detestable enemies of the truth.”

By the time of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, Pope Innocent III was prepared to reassert control. New resolutions (canons) were passed, “designed to isolate, restrict, and denigrate Jews.”[56] Usury was a growing problem, especially when it was causing the bankruptcy of church members who were expected to donate generously. Canon 67 reads: “The more the Christians are restrained from the practice of usury, the more are they oppressed in this matter by the treachery of the Jews, so that in a short time they exhaust the resources of the Christians.” There was also the problem of identification. Then as now, Jews were largely able to move unnoticed through gentile society, owing to the lack of obvious ethnic features. This was unacceptable to the Church and hence they mandated a “difference of dress” for Jews (and also Muslims, or “Saracens”): “we decree that such Jews and Saracens of both sexes in every Christian province and at all times shall be marked off in the eyes of the public from other peoples through the character of their dress” (Canon 68). This was no idle declaration; conical caps, badges, and related clothing were instituted in France, Portugal, Spain, and Italy in the following centuries.[57] Finally, Canon 69 states that “Jews are not to be given public offices… [because] it is absurd that a blasphemer of Christ exercise authority over Christians.”

This harsher stance was taken up by the preeminent theologian of the day, Thomas Aquinas. In contrast to Augustine, Aquinas preferred to emphasize the fact that the Jews knowingly sinned in first refusing and then crucifying the Savior. As Hood (1995: 74) writes, “In Aquinas’ view, the Jewish leaders had sufficient evidence to know that Jesus was divine, but they willfully refused to draw the conclusion. This increased rather than limited their culpability.” This guilt, Aquinas says, is furthermore perpetually binding on the Jewish people, so long as they refuse Christ and adhere to Mosaic Law: “The blood of Christ binds the children of the Jews insofar as they are imitators of their parents’ malice and thus approve of Christ’s killing” (Questiones Disputata de Malo, 4.8).

Apart from this theological guilt was the practical problem of usury. Normally defined as lending money at excessive interest, for Aquinas usury meant any interest. As he writes in the Summa Theologica, “Lending money at interest is intrinsically unjust” (ST_2-2, 78.1). All interest is unethical because it entails no effort; it is reward without work, hardly better than sheer theft. That this is a crime is manifestly obvious to Aquinas, and thus calls for the harshest of punishment. And the Jews come in for special reprimand, as they were most closely identified with that crime. “It seems to me that a Jew, or any other usurer, should be fined more heavily than others who are punished with fines, since they are known to have less title to the money taken from them” (De Regimine Judaeorum [On the Government of the Jews], 70-74). Monarchs of Europe would suffer from restrictions on interest, but they have an obligation to rein in the usurers: “It would be better for [royalty] to compel Jews to work for a living, as is done in parts of Italy, than to allow them to live in idleness and grow rich by usury. If rulers suffer loss, it is only because they have been negligent” (De Regimine, 81-88).

The Jews were guilty on both philosophical and pragmatic counts, and thus were to be shunned. For Aquinas, “Jews were profoundly dangerous, and… contact with them should be avoided whenever possible.”[58] One should not socialize or eat with them, discuss religion, or marry them; they were indeed the true “enemies” of Christian society (ST_2-2, 10.11). Aquinas upheld the Lateran Council’s dictate on restricting Jews from public office, and he endorsed the call to mark them with distinctive clothing. On this latter point he wrote, “The response to this question is clear, since, according to the statue of the general [Lateran] council, Jews of each sex in all Christian lands and at all times should be distinguished from other people by their dress” (De Regimine, 244-249). The point is obvious but it bears repeating: the act of identifying one’s enemy is the first step in dealing with him.

For theological, sociological, and practical reasons, then, the nations of Europe began to take action, and banished their Jewish populations. Waves of expulsions swept the continent in the 14th and 15th centuries: France (1306 and 1394), Germany (1348), Hungary (1349), Austria (1421), Lithuania (1445), Provence (1490), Spain (1492), Portugal (1497). But these would only be temporary measures, as we know; within two or three centuries the Jews were back, in sufficiently large numbers to cause problems once again.

* * *

The first 200 years of the Renaissance saw the peak and then gradual decline of Church authority, and the concurrent rise of local kings, kingdoms, and city-states. The Papal Schism (1378-1417) and charges of internal corruption were early signs of serious problems within the Church. Shortly thereafter, Lorenzo Valla’s exposure of the fraudulent ‘Donation of Constantine’ in 1440 struck another harsh blow at Catholic claims of divine right to governance, which in truth was always at odds with Christian theology.[59] The popes were increasingly seen more as corrupt, power-hungry tyrants than as pious men of God. Dissatisfaction grew to the point where, in 1520, Martin Luther could publicly declare the pope to be the Antichrist.

Luther’s low opinion of the pope was matched by his low opinion of the Jews. In 1541 he was discoursing on the proper procedure for baptism, when he was asked how to baptize a Jew. “If a Jew, not converted at heart, were to ask baptism at my hands, I would take him on to the bridge, tie a stone round his neck, and hurl him into the river; for those wretches are wont to make a jest of our religion.”[60] The following year Luther became convinced of the need to write a lengthy critique, for reasons that apparently extended beyond mere religious strife:

“I intend to write against the Jews once again because I hear that some of our lords [nobles] are befriending them. I’ll advise them to chase all the Jews out of their land. What reason do they have to slander and insult the dear Virgin Mary as they do? They call her a stinkpot, a hag, a monstrosity. If I were a lord I’d take them by the throat, or they’d have to show cause [why I shouldn’t]. They’re wretched people. I know of no stronger argument against them than to ask them why they’ve been in exile so long.” (1955b: 426)

The result was one of the most notorious religious tracts in history, On the Jews and Their Lies (Von den Jüden und ihren Lügen). The Jews are an arrogant and obnoxious race, Luther said, whose claim to uniquely divine blessing is as false as it is misguided. “Those miserable and accursed people” and their “poisonous activities” sought to undermine the Christian faith through their “vile interpretation” of the Bible.[61] It is the “embittered, venomous, blind heart of the Jews”[62] that forbids their acceptance of the truth. Their cause is hopeless; one should not waste time trying to persuade them. In a rather ominous allusion, Luther recalls the drowning of the Pharaoh’s men in the Red Sea, suggesting that the Christians should perhaps do the same to them.

His chief complaint is Jewish arrogance at being the alleged heirs to the holy patriarchs. “They boast of being the noblest, yes, the only noble people on earth. In comparison with them and in their eyes we Gentiles (Goyim) are not human; in fact we hardly deserve to be considered poor worms by them.” Here again is the charge of misanthropy, and the basis for it: Jews despise the rest of humanity because of their God-granted superiority. Such “devilish arrogance” has led to their sorry state. “The blind Jews are truly stupid fools” for thinking themselves superior. The other basis for their arrogance, circumcision, is equally groundless, and is yet another reason for which “they haughtily and vainly despise all mankind.”[63]

Luther relentlessly hammers away for more than 150 pages:[64]

• “[B]e on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in which sheer self-glory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men are practiced most maliciously and vehemently…”
• “Moreover, they are nothing but thieves and robbers who daily eat no morsel and wear no thread of clothing which they have not stolen and pilfered from us by means of their accursed usury.”
• “[T]hey have not acquired a perfect mastery of the art of lying; they lie so clumsily and ineptly that anyone who is just a little observant can easily detect it.”
• “Alas, it cannot be anything but the terrible wrath of God which permits anyone to sink into such abysmal, devilish, hellish, insane baseness, envy, and arrogance.”
• “Undoubtedly they do more and viler things than those which we know and discover.”

Luther even resurrects, indirectly, the old foetor Judaicus: “It serves them right that… they have to look into the devil’s black, dark, lying behind, and worship his stench.”[65] So what are the gentiles to do? Luther has his suggestions:[66]

“First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools, and to bury and cover with dirt whatever won’t burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. … Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. They pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. … Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth, on pain of loss of life and limb. … Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. They have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like. … Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. … Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an axe, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread with the sweat of their brow… But if we’re afraid that they might harm us… then let’s emulate the common sense of other nations such as France, Spain, Bohemia, etc., compute with them how much their usury has extorted from us, seize and divide this among ourselves, but then eject them forever from the country.”

On the Jews and Their Lies was written in 1543 when Luther was 60 years old; he would live just three more years. It was one of his last major works, but the views therein were evidently a lifelong conviction. Even some of his earliest writings, such as his lectures on the Psalms dating to 1513 (age 30), include the essence of his later attack. His Lectures on Romans (1515) reiterates similar concerns as well. He relented somewhat in a 1523 work, That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew, but this seems to have been but a minor correction to his more deeply-held views.

Endnotes